I just did a scratch install of Mint 14, and really like having the panel at the top of the screen. It looks fine until I reboot. Attached to this message is a screenshot. Look at the upper-right corner to see the problem. These large icons also overlap my Firefox browser. If I move the panel back to the bottom of the screen, they are mostly hidden beneath the border. In order to fix this, I must 'restore all settings to default'...only to have it revert back to this state after reboot. I've even switched over to the propriatary Nvidia driver, but the issue remains.